I am determined always to be just and true, to say of others all the good I can, never speaking of evil except when it relates to my own conduct, and there is a necessity for my so doing.

Who, in the situation in which the world has placed me, has a right to require more at my hands?
My confessions are not intended to appear during my lifetime, nor that of those they may disagreeably affect.

Were I master of my own destiny, and that of the book I am now writing, it should never be made public until after my death and theirs.
But the efforts which the dread of truth obliges my powerful enemies to make to destroy every trace of it, render it necessary for me to do everything, which the strictest right, and the most severe justice, will permit, to preserve what I have written.

Were the remembrance of me to be lost at my dissolution, rather than expose any person alive, I would without a murmur suffer an unjust and momentary reproach.

But since my name is to live, it is my duty to endeavor to transmit with it to posterity the remembrance of the unfortunate man by whom it was borne, such as he really was, and not such as his unjust enemies incessantly endeavored to describe him.
THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (In 12 books) Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society London, 1903.